The Dynamics of Subjective Career Success: A Qualitative Inquiry

Current perspectives on career success have yet to show whether and how subjective evaluations may change over time across phases. By adopting a retrospective life-span approach careers, our qualitative inquiry into the experiences of 63 professionals contributes temporal understanding by exploring patterns in perceptions priorities time. The development was explored among early-career, mid-career, late-career workers piecing together perceptions. Our findings point common lifespan. Specifically, we found five shift components during people’s careers: (1) quitting striving for financial recognition; (2) an increased focus personal career; (3) stronger emphasis work–life balance (4) toward being service others; (5) no career. These reflect ways which engage motivational self-regulation corresponding goal-setting theoretical implications are discussed.